HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

Link to Ed Catmull's talk here- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2h2lvhzMDc

Link to Jeff Atwood's post here- https://blog.codinghorror.com/cultivate-teams-not-ideas/

It's worth thinking about the team in advance, especially to understand what things you do well and where you need complementary talents. Good teams also work through the problems that are inevitable in new products. There's a great speech by Ed Catmull that makes this point well. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2h2lvhzMDc)

Of course this is useless advice if you are doing a one-person business. :)

Rich Hickey's talk on simplicity is a must watch.

https://www.infoq.com/presentations/Simple-Made-Easy

And one of the most useful talks of all time for building organizations is by Ed Catmull (of Pixar)

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=k2h2lvhzMDc

⬐ Phorkyas1

In a similar vein like the first one, maybe, but with the addition of some physicist's humor if you are in into that kind of thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKXe3HUG2l4

⬐ michaelsbradley

I saw Simple Made Easy live, in person, in Saint Louis (where I live), back in Fall 2011. I remember the experience very well ~ forever changed the trajectory of my personal and professional efforts at software development.

I was so under-exposed to non C-family languages at the time that I asked the guy next to met whether the code used to demo the ideas "was Haskell or something else?" I felt embarrassed at the shocked look on his face; my grand exploration of Clojure (and other functional languages too!) began shortly thereafter. The previous evening, I'd accidentally had dinner with Dr. Gerald Sussman... what a conference, what an experience was Strange Loop 2011!

[+] https://thestrangeloop.com/2011/sessions.html

⬐ lewisl9029

The Front End Architecture Revolution by David Nolen is one of my all-time favorites, and was probably the biggest single influence on the trajectory of my own development career: http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/61483785

Google seems to be doing ok to me. I like your point that success can hide problems though; Ed Catmull presents it very well here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2h2lvhzMDc

It looks like people were suggesting that Google takes this advice more to heart six years ago already: https://hbr.org/2010/08/what-google-could-learn-from-p

Phrases like, "The myth of burn out" and "Burn out is just a rationalization for giving up early" give me great pause.

Burn out is real. It is dangerous, and even an overwhelming, driving passion for your work, your creation, can lead to disaster.

Ed Catmull recounted this story about the production of Toy Story 2 [1]:

"So we came back, John [Lasseter] told the story crew to take a good rest over the holidays, and come back on January 2nd... we were re-boarding the movie.

We had 8 months left.

We then started this incredibly intense effort to get this movie out. It was boarded quickly, it was pitched to the company, it was an electrifying pitch.

We had a lot of over-achieving people working for over-achieving managers to get the movie out.

We worked brutal hours with this. When I say "brutal", we had a number of people that were injured with RSI [2], one of them permanently left the field.

We had, actually, a married couple that worked there. This was in June, so it's summer, and the father was supposed to drop the baby off at daycare, but forgot; don't know why... but came and left the baby in the car, and came into work. Again, as the heat was rising, the mother asked... they realized and they rushed out: the baby was unconscious. The right thing was done, they put ice-water on the baby. The baby ended up being fine in the end, but it was one of those traumatic things, like, 'Why did this happen, are they working too hard?'

So when I say it was intense, it really was intense."

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2h2lvhzMDc&t=1064

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repetitive_strain_injury

⬐ fennecfoxen

Also, burn-out is NOT a rationalization for giving up early. Burn-out is when you should have given up a long time ago, but you keep pushing yourself too hard instead, and then you fall apart and have difficulty functioning as a human being (to say nothing of performing your job).

The article author might have a point or two about a variety of young actors in the workforce, but they're masked by this and other bits of far-too-tidy preachiness. He's full of it.

⬐ klt0825

Burnout in tech circles is like Depression in the population in general. 90% of people who say they have it really don't and the people who say it doesn't exist have no idea what in the world they are talking about. But for those who have it, it is un-mistakenly terrible.

I put in 80+ hour work weeks for 4 years straight at my last job and it got to a point where I was physically breaking down and developed a slew of transient (but terrifying) neurological problems. It got so bad I actually saw a neurologist who basically said that I was seeing the manifestation of extreme stress and had to stop (He actually pushed me to find a new job, interestingly.)

To your point, it never dawned on me that I was working too much. I had various problems that needed solutions and I was much too engulfed in the pursuit of their solution to really see what was happening until it became impossible to ignore. I'd venture to say most people with burnout are not driven there by someone or something but by themselves.

⬐ beachstartup

> developed a slew of transient (but terrifying) neurological problems.

well don't stop there - what were they? this is important information for the HN crowd.

⬐ solistice

I'm still a student, but I pulled through something similar (trying to get into college), and I thought harder work would get me there. After a couple of months of sleeping 4 hours a day, and way too much coffee and ramen (some cram nights, I'd down 4 cans of nescafé,2 starbucks mocha's and 4 redbulls just to stay working, along with a bowl of cheap ramen to top it off), I started getting frequent colds, eye infections, you name it. I started dozing off and not waking up. I felt giddy in my skin. It was downright terrible.

And the irony of it? After totaling my body, I totaled my grades. Bye,bye Ivy's, it was nice :).

So I don't entirely agree with the author that lack of hard work should be the usual suspect, and that burnouts are an euphemism for slackerism.

⬐ None

None

⬐ moistgorilla

This is happening to me right now. I struggle to find amid ground from working too hard and staying up till 4 am and working too little. Can you spare some advice?

⬐ Helianthus

solistice gave you advice that runs the danger of telling you to work harder at burning yourself out. Given that I'm also giving advice, take that with a grain of salt.

"Make small changes," he suggests.

If you're really on the burnout train, your life is out of control because of your internal pressure to work. You want to be overworking yourself.

Some of that internal pressure is because of external pressure that you've accepted. You want the grades--do you want them, or are you running on others' expectations, and accepting them into your life?

My advice is, be prepared to make big changes. That's not even right: be prepared for big changes to happen to you. Burnout means you lose something.

And so what I should say is, be ready to give it up. You might be really happy if you didn't have all this internal pressure driving you to work all the time.

Are you doing it for them? Or are you doing it for you?

Don't be afraid to quit.

---

That said, you'll do your best work when you're under pressure you're not sure you can handle.

My impression is that you're a student. Apparently you're not under so much pressure that you don't have time to spare asking for advice.

I don't know if you're working too hard. There is always something to be said for keeping a little voice in your mind telling you to "Work harder."

But if it comes crashing down, you have a right to quit and to drastically change your life.

⬐ solistice

Oooops, my bad. Should have focused more on the balance aspect really.

I get what you mean by the internal pressure to work thing. You get anxious when you're not working, and that anxiety starts to nag on your psyche. I've gotten some good results with redefining work for myself, from "what breaks me" to "what compounds for results", but it isn't the perfect solution to the problem. Then, I subdivide mentally between work i should do and work I enjoy. The former category includes writing pieces of code I have to finish or studying for exams (I try to keep that kind of work relatively efficient and hard hitting), and the latter category includes things such as drawing or dancing, skills which are useful and relaxing at the same time.

Alas, it's what works for me.

⬐ Helianthus

Oh, I never saw this until now.

I thought your response was great; I wanted to complement what you wrote, not replace it or criticize it.

⬐ solistice

Ok, the knack really seems to be work smarter, not harder. I haven't got it down to pat entirely, but I'm getting there.

If you have to work hard till 4 am to get school work done, you have a problem. You can group the problems though.

1. Wrong work Odds are you do some work that feels like you're working hard but won't get you anywhere. I had a knack for finding those and working myself stupid over them. "Biology poster? Museum Exhibit it is". Whilst that kind of work can teach you something, don't fret it, and prioritize.

2.Too much work. Don't follow in my footsteps and become an academic masochist. As said above, prioritize and cut things that aren't means to an end/enjoyable. Working on an important academic project you enjoy? Bullseye, it stays. Studying for a major exam that you require for graduation but hate? Dispatch it cleanly and quickly. There's techniques for that. Jamming on the guitar with friends? Sure, you have to relax after all. Working on a worthless elective class you hate? Do yourself a favor and chop it.

3. Handling work the wrong way I'm down to 2 hours study for a 1 hour lecture (I think you can go lower), but I have friends who spend 5 on the same thing and grasp less. Is it because my friends are stupid? Hopefully not. But they tackle it the wrong way. Efficiency whilst studying will help you cut a lot of time off.

Also, understand that we run on cycles. Sleep/Wake, Work/Rest, etc. Every project I did where I tried fighting that fact (Staying up all the time, working all the time) turned into a burning wreck. So learn how you cycle, and work with it, not against it. Trust me, it makes your life easier.

Of course, I could rant on, but most of my mental images of dealing with these issues are really strange (So studying is like a multi-stage conversion-funnel where I try to optimize for x?), so I'll just recommend you the blogs of Cal Newport and Scott H Young. http://calnewport.com/blog/ http://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/

PS: You can get to little done for your taste, but working too little is mistaking the means for the end.

⬐ neltnerb

I feel like the author is conflating the desire to not be bored with burn-out. It's bizarre that anyone could be that confused about what is going on.

No one who has completed a multi-year project actually thinks that there will never be days when you're bored, or that it's good to jump around from project to project. This is like startup 101 stuff, you can't do a company that does everything, you have to define a project goal and stick to it. Which makes everything else in the post pretty nonsensical.

I think the best you can do is try to understand first your priorities, and then understand what makes you function well so that you can push through those boring, emotionally draining, and frustrating times.

I recently wrote about this for myself, although I'm far from figuring it all out. Still working on how to phrase it all, but maybe someone will find it useful despite my lack of writing skill.

http://blog.saikoled.com/post/62737468595/entrepreneurship-f...

⬐ JimboOmega

He absolutely is conflating the two types of burnout - the "my health and human relationships are falling apart and it's destroying me" type and the "I just don't have any passion for this work any more". Granted, the former can lead to the latter (especially when it leads to you losing passion for anything).

It's a shame because he is still making a very valid point.

It's not just startups that this should really be targetted at - there are plenty of people who feel like being bored at work is a sign you need a new job, stat. Work is supposed to be challenging and fun, right?!

And in the worlds of the SF Bay Tech Culture, at least, it's quite possible to live that way; to switch to the cool new company every couple years, or to jump to a new project within your larger corporation.

Of course, it's also totally possible to toil away at an unsatisfying job for no significant benefit. You have to step away some times - often, even - and ask if it's really taking your life in a direction you want to go.

It's crazy how much I've learned about a lot of these things as I've gotten older. But in other ways, I feel like I'm learning at 30 what other people learned at 20.

⬐ munificent

> This was in June, so it's summer, and the father was supposed to drop the baby off at daycare, but forgot; don't know why... but came and left the baby in the car, and came into work.

Several years ago, I almost did the same thing with my infant daughter. Put her car seat in the back seat. Got in. Started driving. On auto-pilot started heading towards the office.

It was only when she happened to make a sound (she often slept on the way to daycare) that I remembered she was still in the truck. A combination of factors led to this:

1. I wasn't getting anywhere near enough sleep at night with feedings every few hours.

2. Carseats can't go in the front seat anymore. Good for safety, but bad for remembering a kid is in the car since they're out of sight.

3. Did I mention I wasn't getting enough sleep?

⬐ rayiner

The not sleeping thing is a bitch. Mine is almost a year and still needs to be topped off a couple of times overnight.

⬐ christkv

We had the same problem but realized the bottle was the sleep prop and started giving water instead and eventually replaced the bottle with a teddy bear.

⬐ nervousvarun

Seems like an opportunity for an app

(disclaimer: obviously did not do my due diligence and google if there was one first. T minus X seconds in counting until the first 'there already is one' post).

⬐ shubb

If you get your baby an android phone, at least you can use the Locate function to find out where you left them...

⬐ jbigelow76

I've thought this too, something with an NFC connection being broken maybe. But then I think about the lawsuit that would probably ensue the first time it didn't work...

⬐ Miyamoto

When you leave the house you check that your keys are present in your pocket/purse/backpack/etc.

When you leave the car you need to check that your kid is not present.

A simple solution would be to put whatever it is you require at work, such as your wallet/backpack/briefcase, right next to your kid in the backseat. You should check for your wallet/backpack/briefcase before you leave the car, which in turn will have you check the presence of your kid.

⬐ None

None

⬐ sliverstorm

I agree it's real, but I also agree people use it as a cop-out.

I definitely don't see it happening over a short timeframe at a normal job. Only time I got any real burnout, was for my capstone at Uni. I had been working around the clock (up to 80hr weeks) for three months solid.

Sidenote, It was actually kind of a cool experiment. I knew I would burn out; I also knew it was worth it (being my capstone). So I got the experience of attempting to forestall burnout just long enough to make our goals. Was a good experience learning about myself.

⬐ None

None

⬐ Smudge

It's worth noting that the original "i quit" post never mentioned burnout. I didn't get the impression that it had anything to do with loren's reason for leaving, so it's strange for the reply post to bring it up like that.

⬐ dkuntz2

This article wasn't solely a response to that one post, but to the general feeling perpetuated by HN. There are a good deal of other posts that show up on HN where someone misattributes boredom to burnout.

⬐ dinkumthinkum

Yes, but "burn out" can be both real and *rare".

Similarly, "burn out" can be a rationalization for giving up early.

I think burn out and "stagnation" are very, very real, but I think they are much less common than is cited by people.

It is certainly not something that occurs over two months.

⬐ abofh

based on his 2004 graduation, this is a kid - let him write it again in 15 years.

⬐ hhandoko

A similar incident happened a couple of days ago [1]. Unfortunately, the baby did not survive despite attempts to resuscitate him.

[1] - http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/western-australia/baby-boy-f...

⬐ None

None

⬐ Amadou

This was in June, so it's summer, and the father was supposed to drop the baby off at daycare, but forgot; don't know why... but came and left the baby in the car, and came into work.

As an aside...

There was a Pulitzer Prize winning article about the phenomenon of parents forgetting their children in the backseat and leaving them to die in the heat. The main take-away is that it can happen to anyone. It isn't a matter of malicious or inattentive parents, it usually happens when there is a variation in routine that distracts the parent and pulls focus from the kid.

http://www.pulitzer.org/works/2010-Feature-Writing

⬐ dkoch

I'm the parent of two toddlers and I can see how it happens. It's not quite as serious as leaving them in a hot car, but I've been in a rush and so distracted by work or life that I've put them in the car and driven away without remembering to fully buckle them into their carseats.

Realizing that you've potentially endangered them is an awful feeling, and a stark reminder to slow down and remember what's important in life.

Luckily they've gotten precocious enough to yell at me "Daddy I'm not buckled" so it doesn't happen any more.

⬐ ErikAugust

Smart kids.

⬐ rodgerd

Do not read that story, by the way, unless you want nightmares.

⬐ scott_s

I read it a year or so ago, and yes, it is terrifying.

⬐ georgemcbay

That's pretty terrifying.

Seems like a good candidate for an "internet of things" solution in the future, eg. a baby seat with a weight sensor, thermometer and 3G data connection (or optionally, some tie in to OnStar, Sync or just the alarm system on a modern bluetooth-capable car) that could alert you and/or automatically pull down the electric windows in a panic mode.

Granted, you'd have to be careful to ensure you don't create a solution people form a false sense of security around since the communications or electronics could fail, but it seems like overall this might save some babies.

⬐ ludicast

I like this a lot. Seems genuinely useful.

A simple version might be something that beeps like a seatbelt-detector if there is weight in back seat but not in front.

⬐ yesbabyyes

Or even beeps when the seat belt is fastened, while the engine is off.

⬐ DennisP

You'd have to calibrate it to ignore the weight of the car seat, since people leave them in place. Seems like great idea though.

⬐ jasonlotito

Put it in the padding of the car seat, so even if it's moved, it's not forgotten.

⬐ partomniscient

Seems to me like you're treating the symptoms and not the cause.

(Not that there's anything wrong with insurance).

⬐ jjoonathan

What's wrong with treating symptoms? If the alternative is treating the cause, then yes, treating the symptoms is foolish. But why do you expect the cause to be treatable in this case? We can't (and shouldn't) fix everyone's routine in granite for all of eternity. So that leaves us with the concrete good to be realized from treating the symptoms.

The "concrete good" in this case is saving babies. I find it very difficult to call that anything but a win.

⬐ GrinningFool

From the article above:

---

or years, Fennell has been lobbying for a law requiring back-seat sensors in new cars, sensors that would sound an alarm if a child's weight remained in the seat after the ignition is turned off. Last year, she almost succeeded. The 2008 Cameron Gulbransen Kids' Transportation Safety Act -- which requires safety improvements in power windows and in rear visibility, and protections against a child accidentally setting a car in motion -- originally had a rear seat-sensor requirement, too. It never made the final bill; sponsors withdrew it, fearing they couldn't get it past a powerful auto manufacturers' lobby.

There are a few aftermarket products that alert a parent if a child remains in a car that has been turned off. These products are not huge sellers. They have likely run up against the same marketing problem that confronted three NASA engineers a few years ago.

In 2000, Chris Edwards, Terry Mack and Edward Modlin began to work on just such a product after one of their colleagues, Kevin Shelton, accidentally left his 9-month-old son to die in the parking lot of NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Va. The inventors patented a device with weight sensors and a keychain alarm. Based on aerospace technology, it was easy to use; it was relatively cheap, and it worked.

That was five years ago. The device still isn't on the shelves. The inventors could not find a commercial partner willing to manufacture it. One big problem was liability. If you made it, you could face enormous lawsuits if it malfunctioned and a child died. But another big problem was psychological: Marketing studies suggested it wouldn't sell well.

The problem is this simple: People think this could never happen to them

---

And it's true. When you hear these stories, what's your first thought beyond "oh that poor kid". Usually: "how could her parent have done that to her? What kind of parent could possibly forget his/her child in the car?"

Maybe that's not your initial response, but it's very likely somewhere in the chain unless you've read up on it or know someone it's happened to. And that response demonstrates why this wouldn't sell: if you don't think yo could make such a mistake you also don't see a need to protect against it.

Might work if it were accompanied by a public awareness campaign, kind f like was done to get parents to put their kids on their backs. But the actual technology - hell, the products themselves - already exist. People just don't see it as a useful technology without that additional push.

⬐ mkr-hn

I like having a chime tell me when I leave the keys in or forget to turn the lights off. A baby alarm seems to be much more valuable.

⬐ GrinningFool

Agreed, but I think the problem is that not enough people will see that value to make it a viable product. People accept that they may forget their keys in the ignition - but they fundamentally do not accept that they could make a mistake this catastrophic.

⬐ mkr-hn

It's just a matter of marketing. They can show ads with people who've made the mistake and emphasize how ordinary and responsible they are otherwise.

Ed Catmull, Pixar: Keep Your Crises Small, Stanford Graduate School of Business http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2h2lvhzMDc (54:11)

Long. Worth it.

It's "The Pixar Story"[1]. A great documentary, highly recommended.

But Pixar wasn't all roses either - during the tight production of Toy Story 2 (because they changed almost all of the story and had to rush it for christmas), a couple (who were both animators) forgot that their 1-year old was in the car (and not in the day care!), and the girl was there for almost 10 hours... She lived, but still a pretty horrible story.

The source for this unpleasant anecdote is [2]. It's a long talk by Ed Catmull, but I can't recommend it enough. It's really, really awesome.

    Success hides problems (Ed Catmull)

Want to know why Pixar was awesome for soooo long? It wasn't luck, and it wasn't because they had great animators. It wasn't even (entirely) because they told terrific stories. It was because they constantly learned from their "successes"... Watch (or listen) to Catmull's talk. I guarantee that you won't regret the 55 minutes you spend on it...

[1]: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1059955/

[2]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2h2lvhzMDc

⬐ raverbashing

Wasn't this Toy Story 1? Well, I'll watch this Catmull's talk.

Still, Pixar Story is a great documentary really, and if you have the chance read the book as well.

⬐ pooriaazimi

I have, actually :)

The audiobook version, I think. I got it for Steve Jobs parts, but the whole book is, as you say, we'll worth a read.

⬐ kayoone

Thanks alot! Cant wait to see it :)

⬐ braveheart1723

another great documentary:

http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/Indie_Game_The_Movie/70229...

about indie games

⬐ gdubs

Lot's of interesting points in the video, but perhaps my favorite has to do with daily iteration and review.

At a place like Pixar where there are so many talented animators, someone might feel intimidated showing sketches/work in progress (not everyone there is trained in Fine Art). By making everyone present daily, it means that the things being presented will tend to be in rough form, relieving the pressure to be 'perfect'.

It also prevents people from holding onto things that are done, waiting for them to be 'perfect'. When things are done, they're done.

The talk is worth watching; here's an overview of his other points:

+ It must be safe for people to tell the truth

+ Communication should not mirror the organizational hierarchy

+ People and how they function are more important than ideas

+ Do not let sucess mask problems through deep assessment

My Google interview experience:

Google Internship January 2008: Had a phone screen. First question as I heard it: “Given a binary tree tell me if it is a binary tree?” I was a bit confused and said I didn’t understand the question and requirements. Given A tell me if it’s A. Yes? The interviewers response to my confusion was: “Do you even know what a binary tree is?” Yes, I do. When he restated the question as “given a binary tree tell me if it’s a valid binary search tree” I understood the requirements efffed up something in the implementation though. Then was asked to do another problem. Something with number sequence and iteration. Got told “division is slow” so don’t use it. Couldn’t see a solution without division on the spot. Then got asked if I know about Java serialization. My response: “implements Serializable” and you can write out or read in objects but I have never really used it in any serious way before.

I got the reject. Which I expected more or less. Kind of frustrating since I felt the interview was pretty much done in the first few minutes since I was asked: “do you even know what a binary tree is.” Kind of an uphill battle from my perspective.

YouTube February 2010: Applied for YouTube because I saw an ad in gmail. Why not.

2 phone interviews. And 4 onsite.

I thought I did ok solved everything to the best of my ability. Frustrated that I didn’t get it. Really enjoyed it. Seemed like a lot of fun. One interviewer told me my current job sounded boring. Not at all professional.

Google Kirkland June 2010: I applied for a developer position after I saw a Google Kirkland is hiring ad. Applied for Software Engineering role and said I’d like to work on Google Chrome.

Eventually a recruiter got back to me and would set me up with a phone call. Yep, I thought it was the initial HR phone screen for a software development role. The HR phone screen was rescheduled and I was told that in the mean time they would be happy to set me up for a call with an engineer for a test position. So the things got pushed off a few days. I still ended up talking with an HR rep before the engineer. She seemed a bit surprised that I had just interviewed at YouTube a few months before. All I thought was wow your HR software sucks. So I jumped through the HR phone screen and technical phone screen.

The onsite in Kirkland was interviews with two developers and two testers. Standard interview technical interview questions. First one was count number of bits in a 32 bit integer. I sent straight for the mask. Add the bytes in parallel. Then add the 4 bytes together. Interviewer was shocked I got that so quick. Ya, crazy when you have been asked the same question in the past, in school... you tend to memorize it from practice. The other interesting thing from the interview was the interviewer worked on the video tag of Chrome. Said the hard stuff was video and audio synchronization and doing that right across 3 different platforms. When I was at YouTube they said they used H264 because it was a good codec for quality and bandwidth and didn’t foresee themselves switching anytime soon. When I asked the Chrome guy if the company was willing to align on not h264 would it happen. The response: oh yeah we are on the same page. Yeah, and then shortly after my interview this was posted: http://apiblog.youtube.com/2010/06/flash-and-html5-tag.html. Oh yes Google, you are a BIG company. Admit it!

The last interview of the day I remember slugging through and just not doing well on. Yeah, didn’t get the job.

My recommendation to Google: Phone interviews and Google Docs don’t mix. There is no auto-indent (that I know of) and I have mentioned that during an interview and got a yeah I know type of response. I would recommend: http://collabedit.com/ or something Google owns: http://etherpad.com/.

Books have been written and sometimes speak of the problems Google faces. In my opinion the biggest problem: “hubris”. I say that from my own experience as well as this book: http://amzn.com/1594202354. They live in their own insulated bubble it seems.

Professionalism is important. Sentences with phrases “do you even know” or “your job sounds boring” are rude.

Your HR software seems to suck. I am not actually interested in a role in “Test Engineering.” Yet, whenever a Google recruiter digs my name up and emails that is the role it is for. My recommendation to someone starting their career: Never ever ever take a job as a SDET/SET. It will hang over your head for years and hold back your career.

I used to really want to work at Google. After a few years in industry and these interviews I no longer have that interest isn’t there any more. For me, it depends on the team and people I’ll be working with more than the product or the company. Part of what has changed my mind: working at Microsoft a startup and this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2h2lvhzMDc.

I believe it's this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2h2lvhzMDc

I think this was derived from Ed Catmull's talk at Stanford.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2h2lvhzMDc

> execution matters more [than an idea]

Execution is ideas http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2h2lvhzMDc&t=22m20s

Keep Your Crises Small, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2h2lvhzMDc

It's a lecture from Ed Catmull. I highly recommend it, many gems from a brilliant developer turned brilliant manager.

Ed Catmull, president of Pixar, has made the same comment about their films. The entire video is worth watching, but the quote in question is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2h2lvhzMDc#t=22:01 -

The other thing to note is, there is a confusion, I think, that the people have and is — the books and press kind of work this way in that we think about "an idea." When we think of ideas for movies, we think about ideas for products. And it's usually thought of as some singular thing.

But the reality is, these successful movies — as with all successful products — have got thousands of ideas. It's just all sorts of things necessary to make it be successful. And you have to get most of them right to do it. And that's why you need a team that works well together.

I believe Ed Catmull refers to this as 'keeping your crises small.' That is to say, it's much better to actively surface problems before they leave the shop than it is to ship with issues, and try to deal with implosions after the fact (ahem, Vista).

Here he is, giving a really good talk at Stanford Business School, in which he covers this (among other good ideas). About an hour, but worth much more.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2h2lvhzMDc

Interestingly, an ethos like this suggests that the fate of Microsoft is NOT inevitable. It's only becomes that way when you no longer care about shipping garbage. Exhibit B: Detroit in the 70's and 80's.

Reminds me of Ed Catmull's talk about Pixar management at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2h2lvhzMDc#t=21m50s -- "If you have a good idea and you give it to a mediocre group, they'll screw it up. If you give a mediocre idea to a good group, they'll fix it, or they'll throw it away and come up with something else."

there's this one called "keep your crisis small" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2h2lvhzMDc

⬐ jayair

Oh I just finished watching that :P Thanks!

Article is a little shallow. Great video by Catmull to Stanford business school on it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2h2lvhzMDc (54 minutes)

And here's an article by him: http://hbr.org/2008/09/how-pixar-fosters-collective-creativi...

e.g. Toy Story 2 was an impetus to creating the present review system; the reason for saying 5 good things is just to make the people feel better about the criticisms: the last thing you want to do after years of exhausting work is point out what sucked. Catmull is the main guy driving these standards; Lasseter is busy being a creative;

BTW: I thought I'd discerned a hidden pattern of pixar having the writer voice the primary mentor role - Brad Bird voiced Edna Mode in The Incredibles; Andrew Stanton voiced Crush in Finding Nemo - but... Brad Bird didn't voice Gusteau in Ratatouille

Reminds me of Ed Catmull's talk about Pixar management at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2h2lvhzMDc#t=21m50s -- "If you have a good idea and you give it to a mediocre group, they'll screw it up. If you give a mediocre idea to a good group, they'll fix it, or they'll throw it away and come up with something else."

fantastic business talk by Ed Catmull (pixar co-founder) at Stanford http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2h2lvhzMDc

btw: I find it hard to believe that Toy Story 3 could be any good (because of the "3"). Is it?

⬐ jcl

I haven't seen the movie, but given the history of Pixar and Toy Story, I think there's a good chance Toy Story 3 will be good: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1334660

That talk by Ed Catmull is very good: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1026628 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2h2lvhzMDc

⬐ None

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⬐ akshat

The Stanford Business videos here are among some of the best entrepreneurship media online. Do check out the rest.

Ed Catmull, Pixar gives a great synopsis of SGI's place in history during this talk.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2h2lvhzMDc

⬐ jeremyw

This is a great talk and I recommend you watch it. Here are the cliff notes.

- Constantly review

- People and how they function are more important than ideas; ideas come as a result

- Do not let success mask problems, do deep assessments

- Organizations fall over by default, slowly enough that you don't notice it

- Everything you do has to be original, you can't repeat yourself, dig deeper, you're always missing something important

What strikes me is how they've internalized successive originality in each project. The latter half of their repetoire is something new in animation: Wall*E, Ratatouille, The Incredibles.

⬐ dennisgorelik

Correction: -- Organizations fall over by default, slowly enough that you can fix them if you care. -- Ed did NOT say that because organization fall slowly it's hard to notice. He implied that you have time to fix the failure... you just have to put conscious effort to notice the problem and then another effort to fix it (while organization is still successful overall).

⬐ jeremyw

He says "... organizations are inherently unstable, they will fall over, you have to work to keep them upright, but they fall slowly, most people don't notice it, they let success blind them." -- roughly minute 34.

I wouldn't want to misparaphrase him, but I think my notes are accurate.

⬐ None

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⬐ noonespecial

22:20

"The other thing to note is that there is a confusion that people have, because the books and the press kind of work this way; We think about 'an idea'. We think about ideas for movies, ideas for products, and its usually thought of as some singular thing. The reality is these successful movies and these successful products have got thousands of ideas. There's all sorts of things necessary to make it and be successful and you have to get most of them right."

Pure gold.

⬐ akamaka

Wow, this is great, thanks for posting!

The 1980s were a fascinating time in computer graphics, and there are few people who are better qualified to talk about it. Ed Catmull practically embodies the history of the field, starting out at the University of Utah, moving to commercial work and struggling for years before finally achieving the ultimate success at Pixar.

I also find him to be an excellent role model, as someone who worked over many years to achieve a real and lasting impact, very much different from some the lucky entrepreneurs of the last decade who receive so much undeserved praise.

⬐ 10ren

This guy is so cool. He's like world class, a pioneer, a revolutionary. And yet he's talking about all this stuff as if he was digging ditches... that he's really into. He cares about it for its own sake.

The way he describes that story-teller brain-trust at the start (trust, necessarily honest) I think also describes him.

⬐ 10ren

"make mistakes and learn from them".

So obvious, well-known and true... but it has a certain reassuring omph when someone at the absolute top of their field says it, with examples from their experience.

It doesn't need to be right the first time. In fact, it can't be right the first time, because there's things that you don't know - and can't know - til you make those mistakes. He said they're "failures, but that's not quite the right word". Another word is "experiment", but that doesn't capture how much these mistakes hurt. They are real.

⬐ apu

I saw Catmull's keynote at SIGGRAPH 2008, and it was spectacular. It had some common elements to this one, but was different overall. What really struck me was how he is not quite a manager, nor a technical person, nor a creative person, but somehow an "organizer" for all 3 of the above groups to work together to create magnificent works of art.

I think in large part this comes from his technical background, which is simply incredible: student of Ivan Sutherland's (of Sketchpad fame), inventor or discoverer of z-buffering, antialiasing, texture mapping, subdivision surfaces, b-splines, and key developer of Renderman!

(For those not in computer graphics, any one of these would be sufficient to give you lifetime fame.)